If you want to know why more people don’t invest their own money in manned space hardware, look no further than this article:
After announcing in February that Orion and the rest of the Constellation program would be canceled in favor of outsourcing routine crew transportation to commercial operators, the White House decided in April to have NASA fund completion of a stripped-down Orion capsule that would launch to the international space station unmanned to serve as an escape craft.
Lockheed Martin, which beat Boeing and its teammate Northrop Grumman in 2006 for an Orion prime contract worth an initial $3.9 billion, welcomed the news as a partial reprieve for the project. But to Boeing, continued NASA funding of an Orion capsule that would need only a launch abort system to start launching crews would add substantial risk to a business case Schnaars said will be a struggle to close.
And why was Orion kept alive? Not because NASA really needed a lifeboat. It was to try to maintain political support for the administration in the purple state of Colorado. But this political decision could have bad consequences for the stated desire to have competition in commercial crew. And the general problem is that one of the many ways that NASA is such a bad customer is in its unpredictability. And it will always be thus with a government space program.
That’s not the only problem. I’m hearing around that there’s a fight between directorates in NASA about who will have the commercial crew portfolio. One wants to do genuine commercial crew, the other is apparently interested in old-style cost-plus and detailed supervision.
The latter result might be labeled “commercial,” but it would never get the cost to a level where anyone but NASA could afford it…as well as falsely “proving” that commercial is no less costly than the old ways, QED.
Very recently, the OMB sent an order to NASA that they must do genuine commercial crew.
That order has been ignored by the directorate in opposition. They continue the fight to do it, and to do it their way.
Whether the latter wants to lay on costs because they genuinely believe that that is the only way to do human flight or whether it is more a measure of “turf” fight is irrelevant.
I will continue asking questions of various contacts as possible.
This was foreseeable as soon as commercial crew became the program of record. NASA is NASA. Which is why the old policy which kept Constellation was actually more likely to produce a commercial HSL industry then this one is.
I don’t know how this fits in with the idea of protecting Obama votes in purple Colorado, but for what it’s worth, the Orion operations in Colorado (and the bulk of the employees) are in the district represented by Mike Coffmann (CD-6). Coffmann is a Republican in about the safest imaginable seat in the state (was previously held by Tom Tancredo).
Coffmann vowed to protect those jobs, and (after a fashion) appears to have done so. So, will Orion employees give the credit to Coffmann for (actively) sort of saving some of their jobs, or to Obama for (passively) not quite cancelling Orion after all?
I don’t really know (nobody talks about a particular politician being responsible for the possible resurrection as a lifeboat), but it would be more of a factor if it concerned CD-4 or CD-7, districts which have been held by Republicans until recently and could flip back again this year.
Keeping Orion as a down-mass only vehicle seemed like some sort of political sausage making. T.L. James has a good point about the Colorado district for the company being in a safe Republican district, so maybe the reasoning lies elsewhere.
Could it be that the real reason was really just part of an overall attempt to show that we were salvaging part of the $9B already spent on Constellation? Bolden testified that most of the money spent would be applicable to the new space plan, but without Orion, it would be hard to justify that statement. I see this as the real reason, FWIW.
I’m not sure any of this matters. The new space age is on hold and will continue to be so until some people get it into their heads they can’t dictate the outcome to either their organizational or political liking.
I mean, the more I think about it, I’d say right now it will be a generation before anything significant happens in space. Unless people stop acting like they get to control the process.
a generation
What are we talking? Another 40 yrs? I don’t think so.
We’ve got orbital tourism in less than a decade. A lunar base in twenty or so. Mars in less than thirty. Bank on it.
We’ve got orbital tourism in less than a decade. A lunar base in twenty or so. Mars in less than thirty. Bank on it.
Just out of curiosity, what predictions did you make in 1980 for the next thirty years in space?
Jim Davis said: “Just out of curiosity, what predictions did you make in 1980 for the next thirty years in space?”
Probably don’t need to even go back that far – heck, remember the excitement when the Roton was doing test flights, as was DC-X, and you could watch the X-33 being built on the Internet? Heady times, and all of it stopped pretty quickly.
Running a Monte Carlo simulation of the outcomes today would be better, but there’s still the chance for more financial crash & burns. Hopefully the lessons that have been learned are to keep your business plan simple, and don’t need too much new technology.
In looking at two NewSpace companies, Orbital and SpaceX are using two different incremental approaches, but both are still fairly conservative. Orbital reuses existing engines for their rockets (including 40 year old Soviet N2 engines), and SpaceX could be accused of building too small and simple of engines. Both are focused on cost, which helps them to attract commercial business, and has let them out bid rivals for government business. They still have to deliver their services to succeed, so we’ll have lot of time to watch and wait.
For Boeing, I think they have a legitimate beef with the Orion Lifeboat, and it will act as a dampener to the the commercial market a whole, which includes Boeing. Even if we do cancel Constellation, it’s negative side effects continue to ripple around the commercial space industry…
what predictions did you make in 1980
I expected about what happened. Except losing the first shuttle was a huge surprise. I could not believe the SRBs were at fault until I heard about the O-ring problem. The second shuttle loss was not as big a surprise. I did not expect the I.S.S. to be finished and it isn’t. The one thing I expected that didn’t happen was an upgraded shuttle 2.
Regarding shuttle 2, I thought they might replace the tiles with an active cooling system, perhaps using a beryllium alloy which is both light and very conductive of heat and perhaps some fluid that would bleed off heat during the critical time.
Oh, you might poke around and put something here and there, but it will be a strenuous effort and not result much in the way of significance.
It will be like saying the English had colonized America in 1587. They had. And they hadn’t. It would take another 20 years for a real colony, and would have to wait until the 1620s for real growth.
40 years. And that doesn’t even take into account we aren’t at the year 1587, we are in the 1560s.
Bank on it.
You’d be right if it were a government project. It isn’t anymore. Bigelow habitats are already on the SpaceX manifest. Follow that in 3 to 4 years with a crewed capsule. Expect several crew flights per year. I’m very confident in hotels in less than 10. Less confident in lunar and mars bases precisely because it will probably require a government bootstrap. But orbital habitats will happen soon because the profit potential is clear.
Once bases are established anywhere, by any country, things will happen fast. Private companies can then provide transportation to government programs for a profit just like they will for I.S.S. resupply. Once private companies have the capability for transport, other destinations start to look good as well. I expect an explosion of activity, most of it private… assuming the establishment of a first base.
NASA is NASA. Which is why the old policy which kept Constellation was actually more likely to produce a commercial HSL industry then this one is.
Alternate Access to Station program, anyone ? This worked out so well, after all …
I have to admit that I’m with Jim Davis on being at least mildly pessimistic. Failure here really is not just an option, but the most likely result. That said, I love this industry, and so long as I can make a good living at it (and can’t see an area outside the industry where I could make a more valuable personal contribution), I’d rather do what I can to see if we can snatch some sort of minor victory from the jaws of defeat than just throw up my hands and do nothing.
But I’m definitely in the group of people who thought things would be a lot further along by now than they ended up being. Of course, in my case, naivety wasn’t all bad. Masten is finally starting to grow up as a company and do some cool things, even if they took a lot longer (though not as much money) than expected. If I had known how hard it was going to be going in, I might not have even tried. But I’m glad I did. Naivety isn’t always a bad thing.
~Jon